Chapter 618 To Know Oneself
?Rowan's eyes snapped open as refreshed as he could ever be in his present state. His Consciousness Pillar and Knowledge Well had healed to their current optimal state, yet they came out wrong…misshapen.
So much of his Ouroboros Bloodline had fused with his Chambers and Consciousness Pillars that with the weakened state of his Ouroboros Bloodline, his pillars no longer ascended to the skies—thick beams of implacable consciousness powers that would place those of the gods and Archmages to shame—now they were crooked, their golden shine reduced to rusted brown.
The Eye of his Knowledge Well was no longer bright and piercing but dull and yellow, like the eyes of an old man in the twilight of his life, its processing power even in this state was less than ten percent.
If these were the tools Rowan had to work with, it would have to be enough, what came next was not a matter of intelligence or power, but simply determination and enlightenment. His preparation was for this moment, and to succeed, he would need to believe and understand himself deeply.
Rowan stood up, his height reduced to 320 miles, yet every motion from his colossal body was palpable.
This action prompted Eva and the rest to retreat, knowing it was time and Rowan nodded at their retreating figures in thanks, he waited for them to return to their places as the endgame had begun.
At this time the Core floating above no longer resembled a heart but an orb with no visible imperfections on its surface, there were three colors rippling along its exterior, the most dominant was a golden luster, and then a red hue like decaying blood, and finally a black color similar to smoke.
With Rowan's new insight, he knew that what he was looking at were not colors, this was the outward appearance of something deeper. This was not Intent as Labaletai once told him, this was much complex, and Rowan chose to call it Will.
Intent could only exist in the fourth dimension after it anchored itself firmly in time, and its effects on the Third Dimension were visibly felt, it was the reason gods and Archamages were truly powerful, for their attacks carried a hint of inevitability, yet it could only move across the present.
Rowan suspected that even the gods themselves did not truly understand how their Intent functioned after they gained this power at first only at very high levels would they begin to comprehend this power, it would take someone like Rowan who was a Nascent Primordial and had access to the understanding of Dimensions at this level to begin to unravel the knot.
It was also the reason why the Intent from the gods could be easily purged, even a lower grade Intent could purge a higher grade Intent given enough volumes, but Will was different.
He recalled what the powerful Mage inside the Isle of Rest told Andar about this power, she had called this color the Stench of an Old One.
This Will or Stench was a deep pervasive power that rooted itself beyond the fourth dimension into higher planes, drenching its corruption deep in the past, the present, and the future.
The gold was from Chaos, the red was from his father and the black was from the Abyssal power that assailed his Angels. This power had slowly crept into his bloodline without him even noticing it, and over time it would slowly bleed into Rowan's being until he would not be able to differentiate his essence from those of the Old Ones.
The danger of such a thing was an ever-present noose on his neck, and if he chose to ignore it, an unfortunate ending awaited him, this universe was unforgiving to the weak.
Now he was going to rid himself of this stench.
The materials were ready, the hovering Orb in front of him that was as large as seven of his previous planet fused together.
The connections had been made, linking billions of components and material to a single whole that was not just a feat in forging, but an art of itself, and the Arcane Rune had been implanted into every single part of the Core, the last thing Rowan needed to do, was to place his own Will inside this Core and give it life.
If Rowan was creating a Destroyer using the previously laid-out blueprints he harvested from the golden book then he would have used his Berserker Intent to serve as its activator, but he was going deeper, which meant he would have to gather his own Will.
For the past two years, Rowan had been deliberating on how to create his own Will, this was a power that he should naturally come into when he reached the fifth or sixth Supreme Circle, but if he waited for that long the Will he would manifest would not be his own in its entirety, but a fusion of the Wills of the three Old Ones inside his bloodline.
At that time he would not be himself anymore for slowly he would have lost what made him different, reduced to nothing but the agency of the Old Ones, it was unknown even with the help of his Primordial Record whether he would be able to purge them from his essence any longer.
Rowan Spirit shuddered, was he not already corrupted?
Not one to spend precious time languishing in his problems, he began working on the process of creating his own Will.
As far as he could tell he had abilities that went beyond his present Supreme Circle, and some of the feats he was capable of were capabilities that only Old Ones were capable of wielding, that meant he already had the tools to create his own Will, he was just not aware of it.
After checking through himself countless times, it was the Primordial Record that finally gave him the hint that he was missing and he began to build from that point. That precious hint was his Titles.
Rowan had five Titles, they were, Plane Walker, Chaos Blood, Reality Butcher, Creator, and finally Primordial.
Everything the Primordial Record showed him was important, and these Titles were significant towards the creation of his Will.
Inside all these Title was the Core of who Rowan was, he just had to find it.